Cars Without Tires and a Safe Place to Live

Cars Without Tires and a Safe Place to Live

We all need a safe place to stay. And when you pay rent to an apartment complex or pay for a night at a hotel, that’s part of what you’re paying for—at least, it’s supposed to be. Particularly for families with children or women staying alone, the security that an apartment complex or hotel provides is crucially important. Tenants and customers have a right to expect that security. When you pay money to an apartment complex or hotel, you’re paying for more than just a roof and a place to sleep—being safe is part of the deal. When an apartment complex, hotel, or other business fails to live up to the bargain and allows a customer to become the victim of violent crime, the apartment complex or hotel can be held responsible. If that happens to you or someone you care about, the attorneys at Butler Law Firm know what to do about it.

Apartment complexes have lots of options for keeping tenants safe. Apartment complexes can install gates or fences, and they have a legal obligation to provide tenants with safe doors and locks. If prowlers or criminals frequent the area, apartment complexes can provide security patrols or additional lighting. At a minimum, apartment complexes where crime is a problem have an obligation to warn tenants about that crime. The unfortunate truth, however, is that some apartment complexes fail to provide these basic security precautions because they aren’t willing to spend the money. As a result, tenants can become victims of predictable crimes.

Hotels are also obligated to keep their customers safe. Hotel management should know what’s happening in the hotel and, if necessary, to put a stop to it. Conditions, activities, or people who endanger guests should be removed. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen—dishonest hotel personnel sometimes allow drug trafficking, prostitution, or even human trafficking to occur on the property, either because the hotel is making money from the rooms that criminals rent or because management is actually taking a cut of the criminal profits. When dishonest hotels allow crime to occur on the property, guests can become crime victims. That shouldn’t happen.

Apartment complexes and hotels must live up to their end of the bargain—when a tenant or customer pays for a place to stay, the apartment complex or hotel has to keep that customer reasonably safe. Just like a car dealer couldn’t get away with selling cars without tires, apartments and hotels shouldn’t get away with renting out rooms that aren’t safe.

If you or someone you know has been hurt because an apartment complex, hotel, or other business failed to keep that person safe, the attorneys at Butler Law Firm know how to help.